Balance of Power Theory

As a theory, balance of power predicts that rapid changes in international power and status—
especially attempts by one state to conquer a region—will provoke counterbalancing actions. For
this reason, the balancing process helps to maintain the stability of relations between states. A
balance of power system functions most effectively when alliances are fluid, when they are easily
formed or broken on the basis of expediency, regardless of values, religion, history, or form of
government. Occasionally a single state plays a balancer role, shifting its support to oppose
whatever state or alliance is strongest. A weakness of the balance of power concept is the
difficulty of measuring power.

Collective Security
Employed during the construction of the League of Nations, the concept of collective security
goes beyond the pure idea of defence to include, according to Inis Claude, 'arrangements for
facilitating peaceful settlement of disputes,' assuming that the mechanisms of preventing war and
defending states under armed attack will 'supplement and reinforce each other' (1984:245).
Writing during the Cold War, Claude identifies the concept as the post-WWI name given by the
international community to the ''system for maintenance of international peace... intended as a
replacement for the system commonly known as the balance-of-power' (1984:247). Most
applicable to widely inclusive international organizations such as the League and the United
Nations, ideally, the arrangement would transcend the reliance on deterrence of competing
alliances through a network or scheme of 'national commitments and international mechanisms.'
As in collective defence, collective security is based on the risk of retribution, but it can also
involve economic and diplomatic responses, in addition to military retribution. From this, it is
theorized that perfected collective security would discourage potential aggressors from angering
a collectivity of states. Like balance-of-power, collective security works on the assumption that
any potential aggressor would be deterred by the prospect of joint retaliation, but it goes beyond
the military realm to include a wider array of security problems. It assumes that states will
relinquish sovereignty and freedom of action or inaction to increasing interdependence and the
premise of the indivisibility of peace. The security that can be derived from this is part of the
foundation of the neoliberal institutionalist argument.

Idealism
Idealism is so widely defined that only certain basic tenets can be described. Idealists believe
strongly in the affective power of ideas, in that it is possible to base a political system primarily on
morality, and that the baser and more selfish impulses of humans can be muted in order to build
national and international norms of behavior that foment peace, prosperity, cooperation, and
justice. Idealism then is not only heavily reformist, but the tradition has often attracted those who
feel that idealistic principles are the "next-step" in the evolution of the human character. One of
the first and foremost pieces of the "old world" and "old thinking" to be tossed on the trash heap
of history by idealism is that destructive human institution of war. War, in the idealistic view, is
now no longer considered by either elites or the populace of the great powers as being a
plausible way of achieving goals, as the costs of war, even for the victor, exceeds the benefits. As
John Mueller says in his book Quiet Cataclysm, war is passing into that consciousness stage
where slavery and dueling reside - it can fade away without any adverse effect, and with no need
for replacement.